"Dear God, I can't breathe," I mumbled to myself.
"Is that you, Naomi?" a strong, manly voice called out for me, echoing through the stairwell walls. "Are you there?"
"I'm here." I somehow managed to reply.
"Do you want me to come up now? Are you ready, or do you need a few more seconds to breathe?"
"I'm not sure I'll ever be ready."
"So… A few more seconds?" He kept talking to me from his hiding place.
"No. I've waited long enough. Come to think of it, I've waited all my life to meet my future husband. I think now is as good a moment for us to meet as any other."
"In that case…" A pair of blue eyes smiled at me as Nathan Real walked up the last three steps and approached me with confidence-filled steps.
He immediately wrapped his arms around my waist and clung to me for a brief embarrassing hug that left me a little confused.
It was clear that he was every woman's dream when I saw his picture attached to his application form, but once I was facing him in real life, I concluded that reality exceeded any imagination I dared to sin in. The guy was perfection itself, but for some reason, his embrace left me with no desire to strip him of his clothes.
"It's so nice to finally meet you." He extended his hand. "My name is Nathan."
"Naomi," I replied and hoped that the lack of sexual attraction I experienced for this perfect guy was due to the excitement rather than the excess self-confidence that was oozing out of him.
"Well, Nick said to keep it short, so hopefully, we can talk more later tonight."
"I'll make sure that happens." I opened the door and slammed it shut behind him.
Damn it!
I wanted to have a few moments before the next guy came up, but I forgot and slammed the door, thus signaling Nick to move along, and he did.
Mere seconds passed, and already footsteps were heard from the direction of the staircase again.
As I was checking out the sturdy man standing in front of me, some of the names of the twenty-five candidates flew around in my head.
I tried. I really tried but failed to remember his name, yet his picture and what he wrote in his application form were well remembered.
"Hi, I'm Logan." He reached his hand out for a shake. Respectable. I thought that was very respectable on his part!
"Logan…?" I narrowed my eyes at him, hoping he'd continue with his surname.
"Logan Frank." An embarrassed smile spread across his face.
"It's nice to meet you, Logan Frank, I'm Naomi."
"Naomi…?" He did the same, narrowing his eyes at me, and turned his shy smile to a cheekier one.
"Naomi Sloan." I smiled awkwardly, and then silence prevailed for the next several seconds.
I looked at every part of his delicate facial features. He looked so much younger than me. I then remembered that he mentioned he had a young look on the application he filled out, and the rest of the details he noted came back all at once.
"You're a veterinarian, right?"
"So you do remember me?" A flattering twinkle shone at me from the corner of his pretty eyes.
"You're aware of the fact that you look younger than your age, but it doesn’t matter to you. You think that life is too short to take yourself too seriously, and I liked that about you," I said, quoting some of the things he wrote about himself.
"You do remember me!" His smile lit a fire through my body.
"I also remember you promised you would make me laugh."
"And promises must be fulfilled," he said, making a funny, ridiculous face and keeping his promise.
His brown hair was neatly brushed back. Short bristles, which seemed to be the result of intricate grooming rather than neglect, wrapped around his rough male jawline, and a single dimple winked at me from his right cheek.
"Naomi, I know for sure that you have quite a few great men waiting for you downstairs, so I won't take up too much of your time." I experienced a pang of disappointment as he hurriedly cut our introduction short.
"Logan, listen, I..." There were so many things I wanted to say that I paused for a moment and just looked at him.
"Yeah?" He smiled at me. "I'd love to hear the rest of that sentence, Naomi. Look me up inside, okay?" He whispered in my ear as he pulled me close and hugged me.
A chill of desire passed through every piece of my body. I stood there paralyzed, unable to move as I watched him slam the door of my apartment behind him.
Damn it! Not again!
I was going to master the slam and earn myself a few moments of quiet between getting to know the men, but that hug of his… I just couldn’t shake off my body's reaction to Logan's touch, yet I had to since footsteps at a different pace were already sounding from the staircase.
"I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming..." I heard someone say excitedly, and soon enough, I found myself smiling again.
"What took you so long?" I tried to be clever and spread my hands sideways to greet the third man who came to get to know me.
"Well, I'm sorry," he said as our eyes found each other. "If I'm not mistaken, you've been waiting for thirty-two years, right?"
"Don't you know you're not supposed to ask a woman her age?"
"Oops, my bad. I'll take comfort in the fact that now you'll remember me as the one who made a huge mistake before the first cocktail party even began. And maybe that was my tactic all along. Maybe that was my plan to make me stand out from the others."
Thick-framed glasses hid his hazel eyes, but it couldn’t hide the fact that he was a very good looking man.
"With whom do I have the honor?" For some reason, I didn’t want to impress him, even though I knew exactly who he was.
"Elijah Simence. It's very nice to finally meet you."
"Well then, let's make this official. Naomi Sloan," I said, reaching out to him for a handshake. "I see you're very excited."
"For sure!"
"Answer me quickly and without thinking about your answer too much. What are you most excited about?"
"I guess I'm mostly excited about meeting a supermodel in real life." His reply disappointed me.
"Well, Elijah, it seems that I really will remember you as the one who made a huge mistake before the cocktail party began." I smiled at him and couldn’t help but wonder if he was there for the right reasons.
"Naomi, I... It's not that I'm a stalker or anything... I mean… You have to understand that you're—"
"That's okay, Elijah." I laid my hand on his shapely forearm. "I'm not offended. Actually, to be honest, I'm also very excited to meet a software engineer." I made it clear that I remembered his application very well, then put pressure on my grip around his arm and sent him into my apartment without hesitation.
Damn him!
He annoyed me so much that I savored the slam of the door behind him, and again, clacking footsteps sounded coming up the stairs.
I turned my gaze to the unknown and hoped with all my heart to be pleasantly surprised.
A bright blond mane, which adorned a delicate and beautiful face, appeared a few seconds later from the stairwell. I stretched a nearly identical smile to that of the man approaching me as his application form came to my mind. I didn’t read a word he wrote in it. I didn’t care how he described himself, or what he wanted to do with his life. All I did was place his application printout on the "Yes" stack, anticipating the opportunity to see him face to face. Worth it!